The American Dialect Society is doing good work in hunting out and interpreting many of these contributions of childhood to the great mosaic of human speech, and it is to be hoped that in this effort they will have the co-operation of all the teachers of the country, for this branch of childish activity will bear careful and thorough investigation.
Plant-Names.
In the names of some of the plants with which they early come into contact we meet with examples of the ingenuity of children. In Mrs. Bergen's (400) list of popular American plant-names are included some which come from this source, for example: "frog-plant (Sedum Telephium)," from the children's custom of "blowing up a leaf so as to make the epidermis puff up like a frog"; "drunkards (Gaulteria procumbens)," because "believed by children to intoxicate"; "bread-and-butter (Smilax rotundifolia)," because "the young leaves are eaten by children"; "velvets (Viola pedata)," a corruption of the "velvet violets" of their elders; "splinter-weed (Antennaria plantaginifolia)," from "the appearance of the heads"; "ducks (Cypripedium)," because "when the flower is partly filled with sand and set afloat on water, it looks like a duck"; "pearl-grass (Glyceria Canadensis)," a name given at Waverley, Massachusetts, "by a few children, some years ago." This list might easily be extended, but sufficient examples have been given to indicate the extent to which the child's mind has been at work in this field. Moreover, many of the names now used by the older members of the community, may have been coined originally by children and then adopted by the others, and the same origin must probably be sought out for not a few of the folk-etymologies and word-distortions which have so puzzled the philologists.
"Physonyms."
In an interesting paper on "physonyms,"—i.e."words to which their signification is imparted by certain physiological processes, common to the race everywhere, and leading to the creation of the same signs with the same meaning in totally sundered linguistic stocks"—occurs the following passage (193. cxxxiii.):—
"One of the best known and simplest examples is that of the widespread designation of 'mother' by such words asmama,nana,ana; and of 'father' by such aspapa,baba,tata. Its true explanation has been found to be that, in the infant's first attempt to utter articulate sounds, the consonantsm,p, andtdecidedly preponderate; and the natural vowela, associated with these, yields the child's first syllables. It repeats such sounds asma-ma-maorpa-pa-pa, without attaching any meaning to them; the parents apply these sounds to themselves, and thus impart to them their signification."
Other physonyms are words of direction and indication of which the radical iskorg; the personal pronouns radical inn,m(first person),k, t, d(second person); and demonstratives and locatives whose radical iss. The frequency of these sounds in the language of children is pointed out also by Tracy in his monograph on the psychology of childhood. In the formation and fixation of the onomatopes with which many languages abound some share must be allotted to the child. A recent praiseworthy study of onomatopes in the Japanese language has been made by Mr. Aston, who defines an onomatope as "the artistic representation of an inarticulate sound or noise by means of an articulate sound" (394. 333). The author is of opinion that from the analogy of the lower animals the inference is to be drawn that "mankind occupied themselves for a long time with their own natural cries before taking the trouble to imitate for purposes of expression sounds not of their own making" (394. 334). The latter process was gradual and extended over centuries. For the child or the "child-man" to imitate the cry of the cock so successfully was an inspiration; Mr. Aston tells us that "the formation of a word likecock-a-doodle-do, is as much a work of individual genius as Hamlet or the Laocoön" (394. 335). Of certain modern aspects of onomatopia the author observes: "There is a kindred art, viz. that of theexactimitation of animal cries and other sounds, successfully practised by some of our undergraduates and other young people, as well as by tame ravens and parrots. It probably played some part in the development of language, but I can only mention it here" (394. 333).
College Yells.
The "college yells" of the United States and Canada offer an inviting field for study in linguistic atavism and barbaric vocal expression. TheNew York World Almanacfor 1895 contains a list of the "yells" of some three hundred colleges and universities in the United States. Out of this great number, in which there is a plenitude of "Rah! rah! rah!" the following are especially noteworthy:—
Benzonia:Kala, kala, kala! Sst, Boom, Gah! Benzo, Benzon-iah! Whooo!
Buchtel:Ye-ho! Ye-hesa! Hisa! Wow wow! Buchtel!
Dartmouth:Wah, who, wah! wah who wah! da-da-da, Dartmouth! wah who wah! T-i-g-e-r!
Heidelberg:Killi-killick! Rah, rah, Zik, zik! Ha! Ha! Yi! Hoo! Baru! Zoo! Heidelberg!
The "yell" ofOhio Wesleyan University, "O-wee-wi-wow! Ala-ka-zu-ki-zow! Ra-zi-zi-zow! Viva! Viva! O. W. U.!" is enough to make the good man for whom the institution is named turn uneasily in his grave. The palm must, however, be awarded to theUniversity of North Dakota, whose remarkable "yell" is this: "Odz-dzo-dzi! Ri-ri-ri! Hy-ah! Hy-ah! North Dakota! and Sioux War-Cry." Hardly have the ancestors of Sitting Bull and his people suspected the immortality that awaited their ancient slogan. It is curious that the only "yell" set to proper music is that of the girls ofWellesley College, who sing their cheer, "Tra la la la, Tra la la la, Tra la la la la la la, W-E-L-L-E-S-L-E-Y, Welles-ley."
As is the case with other practices in collegiate life, these "yells" seem to be making their way down into the high and grammar schools, as well as into the private secondary schools, the popularity and excitement of field-sports and games, baseball, foot-ball, etc., giving occasion enough for their frequent employment.
Here fall also the spontaneous shouts and cries of children at work and at play, theKi-yah!and others of a like nature whose number is almost infinite.
Mr. Charles Ledyard Norton, in hisPolitical Americanisms(New York, 1890), informs us that "the peculiar staccato cheer, 'rah, rah, rah!'" was probably invented at Harvard in 1864. In the Blaine campaign of 1884 it was introduced into political meetings and processions together with "the custom, also borrowed from the colleges, of spelling some temporarily significant catch-word in unison, as, for instance, 'S-o-a-p!' the separate letters being pronounced in perfect time by several hundred voices at once." The same authority thinks that the idea of calling out "Blaine—Blaine—James G. Blaine!" in cadenced measure after the manner of the drill-sergeants, "Left—left—left—right—left!" an idea which had many imitations and elaborations among the members of both the great political parties, can be traced back to the Columbia College students (p. 120).
The Child as an Innovator in Language.
But the role of the child in the development of language is concerned with other things than physonyms and onomatopes. In his work on Brazilian ethnography and philology, Dr. von Martius writes (522. 43): "A language is often confined to a few individuals connected by relationship, forming thus, as it were,a family institute, which isolates those who use it from all neighbouring or distant tribes so completely that an understanding becomes impossible." This intimate connection of language with the family, this preservation and growth of language, as a family institution, has, as Dr. von Martius points out, an interesting result (522. 44):—
"The Brazilians frequently live in small detachments, being kept apart by the chase; sometimes only a few families wander together; often it is one family alone. Within the family the language suffers a constant remodelling. One of the children will fail to catch precisely the radical sound of a word; and the weak parents, instead of accustoming it to pronounce the word correctly, will yield, perhaps, themselves, and adopt the language of the child. We often were accompanied by persons of the same band; yet we noticed in each of them slight differences in accentuation and change of sound. His comrades, however, understood him, and they were understood by him. As a consequence, their language never can become stationary, but will constantly break off into new dialects." Upon these words of von Martius (reported by Dr. Oscar Peschel), Dr. Charles Rau comments as follows (522. 44): "Thus it would seem that, among savages,childrenare to a great extent the originators of idiomatic diversities. Dr. Peschel places particular stress on this circumstance, and alludes to the habit of over-indulgent parents among refined nations of conforming to the humours of their children by conversing with them in a kind of infantine language, until they are several years old. Afterward, of course, the rules of civilized life compel these children to adopt the proper language; but no such necessity exists among a hunter family in the primeval forests of South America; here the deviating form of speech remains, and the foundation of a new dialect is laid."
Children's Languages.
But little attention has been paid to the study of the language of children among primitive people. In connection with a brief investigation of child-words in the aboriginal tongues of America, Mr. Horatio Hale communicated to the present writer the following observation of M. l'Abbé Cuoq, of Montreal, the distinguished missionary and linguist: "As far as the Iroquois in particular are concerned, it is certain that this language [langage enfantin] is current in every family, and that the child's relatives, especially the mothers, teach it to their children, and that the latter consequently merely repeat the words of which it is composed" (201. 322). That these "child-words" were invented by children, the Abbé does not seem to hint.
The prominence of the mother-influence in the child's linguistic development is also accentuated by Professor Mason, who devotes a chapter of his recent work on woman's part in the origin and growth of civilization to woman as a linguist. The author points out how "women have helped to the selection and preservation of language through onomatopoeia," their vocal apparatus being "singularly adapted to the imitation of many natural sounds," and their ears "quick to catch the sounds within the compass of the voice" (113. 188-204). To the female child, then, we owe a good deal of that which is now embodied in our modern speech, and the debt of primitive races is still greater. Many a traveller has found, indeed, a child the best available source of linguistic information, when the idling warriors in their pride, and the hard-working women in their shyness, or taboo-caused fear, failed to respond at all to his requests for talk or song.
Canon Farrar, in hisChapters on Language, makes the statement: "It is a well-known fact that the neglected children, in some of the Canadian and Indian villages, who are left alone for days, can and do invent for themselves a sort oflingua franca, partially or wholly unintelligible to all except themselves" (200. 237). Mr. W. W. Newell speaks of the linguistic inventiveness of children in these terms (313. 24):—
"As infancy begins to speak by the free though unconscious combination of linguistic elements, so childhood retains in language a measure of freedom. A little attention to the jargons invented by children might have been serviceable to certain philologists. Their love of originality finds the tongue of their elders too commonplace; besides, their fondness for mystery requires secret ways of communication. They, therefore, often create (so to speak) new languages, which are formed by changes in the mother-speech, but sometimes have quite complicated laws of structure and a considerable arbitrary element." The author cites examples of the "Hog Latin" of New England schoolchildren, in the elaboration of which much youthful ingenuity is expended. Most interesting is the brief account of the "cat" language:—
"A group of children near Boston invented thecat language, so called because its object was to admit of free intercourse with cats, to whom it was mostly talked, and by whom it was presumed to be comprehended. In this tongue the cat was naturally the chief subject of nomenclature; all feline positions were observed and named, and the language was rich in such epithets, as Arabic contains a vast number of expressions forlion. Euphonic changes were very arbitrary and various, differing for the same termination; but the adverbial ending-lywas always-osh; terribly, terriblosh. A certain percentage of words were absolutely independent, or at least of obscure origin. The grammar tended to Chinese or infantine simplicity;tarepresented any case of any personal pronoun. A proper name might vary in sound according to the euphonic requirements of the different Christian names by which it was preceded. There were two dialects, one, however, stigmatized asprovincial. This invention of language must be very common, since other cases have fallen under our notice in which children have composed dictionaries of such" (313. 25).
This characterization of child-speech offers not a few points of contact with primitive languages, and might indeed almost have been written of one of them.
More recently Colonel Higginson (262) has given some details of "a language formed for their own amusement by two girls of thirteen or thereabouts, both the children of eminent scientific men, and both unusually active-minded and observant." This dialect "is in the most vivid sense a living language," and the inventors, who keep pruning and improving it, possess a manuscript dictionary of some two hundred words, which, it is to be hoped, will some day be published. An example or two from those given by Colonel Higginson will serve to indicate the general character of the vocabulary:—
bojiwassis, "the feeling you have just before you jump, don't you know—when you mean to jump and want to do it, and are just a little bit afraid to do it."
spygri, "the way you feel when you have just jumped and are awfully proud of it."
pippadolify, "stiff and starched like the young officers at Washington."
Other information respecting this "home-made dialect," with its revising academy of children and its standard dictionary, must be sought in the entertaining pages of Colonel Higginson, who justly says of this triumph of child-invention: "It coins thought into syllables, and one can see that, if a group of children like these were taken and isolated until they grew up, they would forget in time which words were their own and which were in Worcester's Dictionary; andstowishandkronoandbojiwassiswould gradually become permanent forms of speech" (262. 108).
In his valuable essay onThe Origin of Languages(249), Mr. Horatio Hale discusses a number of cases of invention of languages by children, giving interesting, though (owing to the neglect of the observers) not very extensive, details of each.
One of the most curious instances of the linguistic inventiveness of children is the case of the Boston twins (of German descent on the mother's side) born in 1860, regarding whose language a few details were given by Miss E. H. Watson, who says: "At the usual age these twins began to talk, but, strange to say,nottheir 'mother-tongue.' They had a language of their own, and no pains could induce them to speak anything else. It was in vain that a little sister, five years older than they, tried to make them speak theirnative language,—as it would have been. They persistently refused to utter a syllable of English. Not even the usual first words, 'papa,' 'mamma,' 'father,' 'mother,' it is said, did they ever speak; and, said the lady who gave this information to the writer,—who was an aunt of the children, and whose home was with them,—they were never known during this interval to call their mother by that name. They had their own name for her, but never the English. In fact, though they had the usual affections, were rejoiced to see their father at his returning home each night, playing with him, etc., they would seem to have been otherwise completely taken up, absorbed, with each other…. The children had not yet been to school; for, not being able to speak their 'own English,' it seemed impossible to send them from home. They thus passed the days, playing and talking together in their own speech, with all the liveliness and volubility of common children. Their accent wasGerman,—as it seemed to the family. They had regular words, a few of which the family learned sometimes to distinguish; as that, for example, for carriage [ni-si-boo-a], which, on hearing one pass in the street, they would exclaim out, and run to the window" (249. 11). We are further informed that, when the children were six or seven years old, they were sent to school, but for a week remained "perfectly mute"; indeed, "not a sound could be heard from them, but they sat with their eyes intently fixed upon the children, seeming to be watching their every motion,—and no doubt, listening to every sound. At the end of that time they were induced to utter some words, and gradually and naturally they began, for the first time, to learn their 'native English.' With this accomplishment, the other began also naturally to fade away, until the memory with the use of it passed from their mind" (249. 12).
Mr. Horatio Hale, who resumes the case just noticed in his address before the Anthropological Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Buffalo, 1886), gives also valuable details of the language of a little four-year-old girl and her younger brother in Albany, as reported by Dr. E. R. Hun (249. 13). The chief facts are as follows: "The mother observed when she was two years old that she was backward in speaking, and only used the words 'papa' and 'mamma.' After that she began to use words of her own invention, and though she readily understood what was said, never employed the words used by others. Gradually she extended her vocabulary until it reached the extent described below [at least twenty-one distinct words, many of which were used in a great variety of meanings]. She has a brother eighteen months younger than herself, who has learned her language, so that they talk freely together. He, however, seems to have adopted it only because he has more intercourse with her than with others; and in some instances he will use a proper word with his mother, and his sister's word with her. She, however, persists in using only her own words, though her parents, who are uneasy about her peculiarity of speech, make great efforts to induce her to use proper words."
More may be read concerning this language in the account of Dr. Hun (published in 1868).
Mr. Hale mentions three other cases, information regarding which came to him. The inventors in the first instance were a boy between four and five years old, said to have been "unusually backward in his speech," and a girl a little younger, the children of a widower and a widow respectively, who married; and, according to the report of an intimate friend: "He and the little girl soon became inseparable playmates, and formed a language of their own, which was unintelligible to their parents and friends. They had names of their own invention for all the objects about them, and must have had a corresponding supply of verbs and other parts of speech, as their talk was fluent and incessant." This was in Kingston, Ontario, Canada (249. 16).
The second case is that of two young children, twins, a boy and a girl: "When they were three or four years old they were accustomed, as their elder sister informs me, to talk together in a language which no one else understood…. The twins were wont to climb into their father's carriage in the stable, and 'chatter away,' as my informant says, for hours in this strange language. Their sister remembers that it sounded as though the words were quite short. But the single word which survives in the family recollection is a dissyllable, the word for milk, which wascully. The little girl accompanied her speech with gestures, but the boy did not. As they grew older, they gradually gave up their peculiar speech" (249. 17).
The third case cited by Mr. Hale is that of two little boys of Toronto, Canada,—five or six years of age, one being about a year older than the other, who attended a school in that city: "These children were left much to themselves, and had a language of their own, in which they always conversed. The other children in the school used to listen to them as they chattered together, and laugh heartily at the strange speech of which they could not understand a word. The boys spoke English with difficulty, and very imperfectly, like persons struggling to express their ideas in a foreign tongue. In speaking it, they had to eke out their words with many gestures and signs to make themselves understood; but in talking together in their own language, they used no gestures and spoke very fluently. She remembers that the words which they used seemed quite short" (249. 18).
Mr. Hale's studies of these comparatively uninvestigated forms of human speech led him into the wider field of comparative philology and linguistic origins. From the consideration of these data, the distinguished ethnologist came to regard the child as a factor of the utmost importance in the development of dialects and families of speech, and to put forward in definite terms a theory of the origin and growth of linguistic diversity and dialectic profusion, to the idea of which he was led by his studies of the multitude of languages within the comparatively restricted area of Oregon and California (249. 9). Starting with the language-faculty instinct in the child, says Mr. Hale: "It was as impossible for the first child endowed with this faculty not to speak in the presence of a companion similarly endowed, as it would be for a nightingale or a thrush not to carol to its mate. The same faculty creates the same necessity in our days, and its exercise by young children, when accidentally isolated from the teachings and influence of grown companions, will readily account for the existence of all the diversities of speech on our globe" (249. 47). Approaching, in another essay, one of the most difficult problems in comparative philology, he observes: "There is, therefore, nothing improbable in the supposition that the first Aryan family—the orphan children, perhaps, of some Semitic or Accadian fugitives from Arabia or Mesopotamia—grew up and framed their new language on the southeastern seaboard of Persia." Thus, he thinks, is the Aryo-Semitic problem most satisfactorily solved (467. 675). In a second paper (250) onThe Development of Language, Mr. Hale restates and elaborates his theory with a wealth of illustration and argument, and it has since won considerable support from the scientists of both hemispheres.
Professor Romanes devotes not a few pages of his volume onMental Evolution in Man, to the presentation of Mr. Hale's theory and of the facts upon which it is based (338. 138-144).
Secret Languages.
That the use of secret languages and the invention of them by children is widespread and prevalent at home, at school, in the playground, in the street, is evident from the exhaustive series of articles in which Dr. F. S. Krauss (281) of Vienna has treated of "Secret Languages." Out of some two hundred forms and fashions there cited a very large proportion indeed belong to the period of childhood and youth and the scenes of boyish and girlish activity. We have languages for games, for secret societies, for best friends, for school-fellows, for country and town, for boys and girls, etc. Dr. Oscar Chrisman (206) has quite recently undertaken to investigate the nature and extent of use of these secret languages in America, with gratifying results. A study of the child at the period in which the language-making instinct is most active cannot be without interest to pedagogy, and it would not be without value to inquire what has been the result of the universal neglect of language-teaching in the primary and lower grade grammar schools—whether the profusion of secret languages runs parallel with this diversion of the child-mind from one of its most healthful and requisite employments, or whether it has not to some extent atrophied the linguistic sense.
The far-reaching ramifications of "secret languages" are evidenced by the fact that a language called "Tut" by school-children of Gonzales, Texas, is almost identical in its alphabet with the "Guitar Language," of Bonyhad, in Hungary, the "Bob Language," of Czernowitz, in Austria, and another language of the same sort from Berg. The travels of the Texas secret language are stated by Dr. Chrisman to be as follows: "This young lady … learned it from her mother's servant, a negro girl; this girl learned it from a negro girl who got it at a female negro school at Austin, Texas, where it was brought by a negro girl from Galveston, Texas, who learned it from a negro girl who had come from Jamaica" (208. 305).
Evidence is accumulating to show that these secret languages of children exist in all parts of the world, and it would be a useful and instructive labour were some one to collect all available material and compose an exhaustive scientific monograph on the subject.
Interesting, for comparative purposes, are the secret languages and jargons of adults. As Paul Sartori (528) has recently shown, the use of special or secret languages by various individuals and classes in the communities is widespread both in myth and reality. We find peculiar dialects spoken by, or used in addressing, deities and evil spirits; giants, monsters; dwarfs, elves, fairies; ghosts, spirits; witches, wizards, "medicine men"; animals, birds, trees, inanimate objects. We meet also with special dialects of secret societies (both of men and of women); sacerdotal and priestly tongues; special dialects of princes, nobles, courts; women's languages, etc.; besides a multitude of jargons, dialects, languages of trades and professions, of peasants, shepherds, soldiers, merchants, hunters, and the divers slangs and jargons of the vagabonds, tramps, thieves, and other outcast or criminal classes.
Far-reaching indeed is the field opened by the consideration of but a single aspect of child-speech, that doll-language which Joaquin Miller so aptly notes:—
"Yet she carried a doll, as she toddled alone,And she talked to that doll in a tongue her own."
Diminutives.
Both the golden age of childhood and the golden age of love exercise a remarkable influence upon language. Mantegazza, discussing "the desire to merge oneself into another, to abase oneself, to aggrandize the beloved," etc., observes: "We see it in the use of diminutives which lovers and sometimes friends use towards each other, and which mothers use to their children; we lessen ourselves thus in a delicate and generous manner in order that we may be embraced and absorbed in the circle of the creature we love. Nothing is more easily possessed than a small object, and before the one we love we would change ourselves into a bird, a canary—into any minute thing that we might be held utterly in the hands, that we might feel ourselves pressed on all sides by the warm and loving fingers. There is also another secret reason for the use of diminutives. Little creatures are loved tenderly, and tenderness is the supreme sign of every great force which is dissolved and consumes itself. After the wild, passionate, impetuous embrace there is always the tender note, and then diminutives, whether they belong to expression or to language, always play a great part" (499. 137). The fondness of boys for calling each other by the diminutives of their surnames belongs here.
In some languages, such as the Nipissing dialect of Algonkian in North America, the Modern Greek or Romaic, Lowland Scotch, and Plattdeutsch, the very frequent employment of diminutives has come to be a marked characteristic of the common speech of the people. The love for diminutives has, in some cases, led to a charm of expression in language which is most attractive; this is seen perhaps at its best in Castilian, and some of the Italian dialects (202 and 219). A careful study of the influence of the child upon the forms of language has yet to be made.
The child is a born actor.
The world's a theatre, the earth a stage,Which God and Nature do with actors fill.—Heywood.
Man is an imitative creature, and the foremost leads the flock.—Schiller.
Imitative Games.
In her article onImitation in Children, Miss Haskell notes the predilection of children for impersonation and dramatic expression, giving many interesting examples. S. D. Warren, in a paper read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at the Brooklyn Meeting, 1894 (Proc., Vol. xliii., p. 335), also notes these activities of children, mentioning, among other instances, "an annual celebration of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown," "playing railroad," playing at pulling hand fire-engines, as the representatives of two rival villages.
The mention of the celebration of Cornwallis' surrender by children brings up the question of the child as recorder. As historian and chronicler, the child appears in the countless games in which he preserves more or less of the acts, beliefs, and superstitions of our ancestors. Concerning some of these, Miss Alice Gomme says: "It is impossible that they have been invented by children by the mere effort of imagination, and there is ample evidence that they have but carried on interchangeably a record of events, some of which belong to the earliest days of the nation" (242.11).
As Miss Gomme points out, many of the games of English children are simply primitive dramas,—of the life of a woman ("When I was a Young Girl"), of courtship and marriage ("Here comes Three Dukes a-Riding," "Poor Mary sits a-Weeping"), of funerals ("Jenny Jones," "Green Gravel"), of border warfare ("We are the Rovers"), etc. Mr. W. W. Newell had previously remarked the importance of the dramatic element in children's games, citing as historical plays "Miss Jennia Jones" (funeral), "Down she comes as White as Milk," "Green Gravel," "Uncle John," "Barbara Allen," and others more or less partaking of this character, based upon historical ballads, of some of which traces only are now preserved.
By means of carved or graven images in wood or stone, given to children as playthings or as targets to practise skill in shooting or striking with miniature bow-and-arrow or spear, an early acquaintance is formed with many animals. The imitation of animals, their habits and peculiarities, often forms no small part of the dances and games of children of the lower races.
The Child as Actor.
Wallaschek, in his study of the primitive drama and pantomime (546. 214-229), notes the presence of children as dancers and performers among the Andaman Islanders, the Tagals of the Philippines, the Tahitians, Fijis, Polynesians and other more or less primitive races. Of Tibet and some portions of China Mr. Rockhill, in hisDiary of a Journey through Mongolia, and Tibet, in 1891 and 1892(Washington, D. C., 1894), informs us that the lads in every village give theatrical performances, the companies of young actors being known asHsiao sheng huei, "young men's amateur theatrical company" (p. 68).
Among the aborigines of the New World we find also children as actors and participants in the ceremonies and ritual performances of various tribes. In certain ceremonials of the Sia, as Mrs. Stevenson informs us, young children take part. A boy of eight was allowed to hear the sacred songs on one occasion, and to witness the making of the "medicine-water," but a boy of four was not permitted to be present; the boy also took part in the dance (538. 79). In the rain ceremonial of the "Giant Society," a little girl, eight years old, painted the fetiches quite as dexterously as her elders, and took apparently quite as much interest in the proceedings. In the rain ceremonial of the "Knife Society," boys assist, and in the rain ceremonial of the Querränna, a child (boy) with wand and rattle joins in the celebration of the rites, "requiring no rousing to sing and bend his tiny body to the time of the rattle, and joining in the calls upon the cloud-people to gather to water the earth, with as much enthusiasm as his elders." When children, boys or girls, are about ten or twelve years of age, and have, as the Indians say, "a good head," they are initiated, if they so desire, into some of the mysteries of the dances of the Ka'tsuna, in charge of the Querränna Society (538. 106-117).
Dr. J. W. Fewkes, in his detailed article on theFlute Observanceof the Tusayan Indians of Walpi, an interesting study of primitive dramatization, notes the part played by children in these ceremonies. The principal characters are the "Snake Boy," the "Snake Girl," and some girl carriers of the sacred corn, besides lads as acolytes.
The story of the child as an actor has yet to be written. When the ancient Greeks crowded the theatres to hear and see the masterpieces of dramatic and histrionic genius, their "women, slaves, and children" were for the most part left at home, though we do find that later on in history, front seats were provided for the chief Athenian priestesses. No voices of children were heard in chorus, and childhood found no true interpreter upon the stage. In France, in the middle of the seventeenth century, women appear as actors; in England it was not until long after the death of her greatest dramatist that (in 1660) women could fill arôleupon the stage without serious hindrance or molestation; in Japan, even now, play-acting is not looked upon as a respectable profession for women. For a long time in England and elsewhere, female parts were taken by children and youths. Here also we meet with companies of child-actors, such as the "Boys of the Grammar School at Westminster," "The Children of Paul's," etc. The influence which produced these survives and flourishes to-day in the fondness of high-school pupils and university students for dramatic performances and recitations, and the number of schools of gesture, elocution, and the like, testifies to the abiding interest of the young in the mimic art. This is also evidenced by the number of child actors and actresses in the theatrical world, and the remarkable precocity of the members of the profession in all lands. In England, the pantomime offers a special outlet for this current of expression, and there the child is a most important factor in stage-life. The precocity of girls in these respects is noteworthy.
The Child as Inventor.
Borrowing his figure of speech from the environment of child-hood, C. J. Weber has said: "Die Gesellschaft ist die Grossmutter der Menschkeit durch ihre Töchter, die Erfindungen,—Society is the grandmother of humanity through her daughters, the inventions," and the familiar proverb—Necessity is the mother of invention—springs from the same source. Isaac Disraeli aptly says: "The golden hour of invention must terminate like other hours; and when the man of genius returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amusements of life, his companions behold him as one of themselves,—the creature of habits and infirmities," and not a few of the "golden hours of invention" seem to belong to the golden age of childhood. Even in these "degenerate" days the child appears as an inventor. A contributor to the periodical literature of the day remarks: "Children have taken out a number of patents. The youngest inventor on record is Donald Murray Murphy, of St. John, Canada, who, at the age of six years, obtained from the United States exclusive rights in a sounding toy. Mabel Howard, of Washington, at eleven years, invented an ingenious game for her invalid brother and got a patent for it. Albert Gr. Smith, of Biehwood, Illinois, at twelve years invented and patented a rowing apparatus" (Current Lit., K T., xiv. 1893, p. 138).
The works of Newell (313), Bolton (187), Gomme (243), amply reveal the riot of childish variation and invention in games and plays. Mr. Newell observes: "It would be strange if children who exhibit so much inventive talent [in language] did not contrive new games; and we find accordingly that in many families a great part of the amusements of the children are of their own devising. The earliest age of which the writer has authentic record of such ingenuity is two and a half years" (313. 25). And among the primitive peoples the child is not without like invention; some, indeed, of the games our children play, were invented by the savage young ones, whose fathers have been long forgotten in the mist of prehistoric ages—the sports of their children alone surviving as memorials of their existence.
Theal tells us that the Kaffir children, when not engaged in active exercise, "amuse themselves by moulding clay into little images of cattle, or by making puzzles with strings. Some of them are skilful in forming knots with thongs and pieces of wood, which it taxes the ingenuity of the others to undo. The cleverest of them sometimes practise tricks of deception with grains of maize" (543. 221). The distinguished naturalist, Mr. A. R. Wallace, while on his visit to the Malay Archipelago, thought to show the Dyak boys of Borneo something new in the way of the "cat's cradle," but found that he was the one who needed to learn, for the little brown aborigines were able to show him several new tricks (377. 25).
Miklucho-Maclay notes that among the Papuans of north-eastern New Guinea, while the women showed no tendency to ornament pottery, young boys "found pleasure in imprinting with their nails and a pointed stick a sort of ornamental border on some of the pots" (42. 317).
Paola Lombroso, daughter of Professor Cesare Lombroso, the celebrated criminologist, in her recent study of child psychology, observes: "Games (and plays) are the most original creation of the child, who has been able to create them, adapt them to his needs, making of them a sort of gymnastics which enables him to develop himself without becoming fatigued, and we, with the aid of memory, can hardly now lay hold of that feeling of infinite, intense pleasure." Moreover, these popular traditional plays and games, handed down from one generation to another of children, "show how instinctive are these forms of muscular activity and imitative expression, which have their roots in a true physiological and psychic necessity, being a species of tirocinium for the experience of childhood" (301. 136).
Themagnum opus, perhaps, of the child as inventor, is the lyre, the discovery of which, classical mythology attributes to the infant Mercury or Hermes. Four hours after his birth the baby god is said to have found the shell of a tortoise, through the opposite edges of which he bored holes, and, inserting into these cords of linen, made the first stringed instrument. The English poet, Aubrey de Vere, singing of an Athenian girl, thus refers to the quaint myth:—
"She loves to pace the wild sea-shore—Or drop her wandering fingers o'erThe bosom of some chorded shell:Her touch will make it speak as wellAs infant Hermes madeThat tortoise in its own despiteThenceforth in Heaven a shape star-bright."
Poeta nascitur, non fit.—Latin Proverb.
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.—Pope.
The Child and Music.
"Music," said quaint old Thomas Puller, "is nothing else but wild sounds civilized into time and tune," and Wallaschek, in his recent volume onPrimitive Music, has shown how every nation under heaven, even the most savage and barbarous of peoples, have had a share in the work of civilization. Music has been called "the language of the gods," "the universal speech of mankind," and, early in the golden age of childhood, the heaven of infancy, is man made captive by "music's golden tongue." As Wallaschek has said of the race, Tracy says of the individual, "no healthy, normal child is entirely lacking in musical 'ear.'" The children of primitive races enjoy music, as well as their fellows in civilized communities. The lullaby, thatquod semper ubique et ab omnibusof vocal art, early engages and entrances the infantile ear, and from the musical demonstrations of his elders, the child is not always or everywhere excluded. Indeed, the infant is often ushered into the world amid the din and clamour of music and song which serve to drown the mother's cries of pain, or to express the joy of the family or the community at the successful arrival of the little stranger.
Education in music and the dance begins very early with many peoples. At the school of midwifery at Abu-Zabel in Egypt, according to Clot-Bey, in cases of difficult childbirth, a child is made to hop and dance about between the legs of the mother in order to induce the foetus to imitate it (125. II. 159).
As understudies and assistants to shamans, "medicine-men," and "doctors," children among many primitive peoples soon become acquainted with dance and song.
In Ashanti, boy musicians, singers, and dancers figure in the processions of welcome of the chiefs and kings, and young girls are engaged in the service of the fetiches (438. 258). At a funeral dance of the Latuka, an African tribe, "the women remained outside the row of dancers dancing a slow, stupid step, and screaming a wild and most inharmonious chant, whilst boys and girls in another row beat time with their feet." Burchell, whileen routefor the Kaffir country, found among certain tribes that "in the evening a whole army of boys would come to his hut and listen with manifest pleasure to the tones of his violin, and would repeat the melodies he played with surprising accuracy" (546. 3, 199). Themeke-meke, a dance of the Fiji Islanders, "is performed by boys and girls for whom an old musician plays"; at Tahiti the children "are early taught the 'ubus,' songs referring to the legends or achievements of the gods," and "Europeans have at times found pleasure in the pretty, plaintive songs of the children as they sit in groups on the sea-shore" (546. 35, 180, 208). In some of the Polynesian Islands, young girls are "brought up to dance the timorodea, a most lascivious dance, and to accompany it with obscene songs" (100. 62). At Tongatabu, according to Labillardiere, a young girl "sang a song, the simple theme of which she repeated for half-an-hour" (546. 31). Wallaschek calls attention to the importance of the child in song in the following words (546. 75):—
"In some places the children, separated from the adults, sing choruses among themselves, and under certain circumstances they are the chief support of the practice of singing. On Hawaii, Ellis found boys and girls singing in chorus, with an accompaniment of seven drums, a song in honour of a quondam celebrated chief. Even during supper with the Governor, table-music was performed by a juvenile bard of some twelve or fourteen summers, who sang a monotonous song to the accompaniment of a small drum…. In Fiji a man of position deems it beneath him to sing, and he leaves it to his wife and children, so that women sing with women only, and children with children."
Speaking of the natives of Australia, with whom he came into contact, Beckler says "the octaves of the women and children at the performance he attended were perfectly in tune, as one rarely hears in a modern opera chorus, they were in exact accord." In the Kuri dance, witnessed by Angas, a number of boys take part (546. 37, 223).
In New Guinea "the Tongala-up, a stick with a string whirled in the air, is played by women and children." Among the Tagals of the Philippines, Volliner found (with perhaps a little Spanish influence) "a chorus was performed in a truly charming manner by twelve young girls formed in a circle, one girl standing in the middle to direct." In the Andaman Islands, where the men only, as a rule, sing, "the boys were far the best performers" (546.24, 27, 75).
Among the Apache Indians of Arizona and Mexico, "old matrons and small children dance until no longer able to stand, and stop for very exhaustion" (546. 46).
The Child as Poet.
Victor Hugo, in one of his rhapsodies, exclaims: "The most sublime psalm that can be heard on this earth is the lisping of a human soul from the lips of childhood," and the rhythm within whose circle of influence the infant early finds himself, often leads him precociously into the realm of song. Emerson has said, "Every word was once a poem," and Andrew Lang, in his facetiousBallade of Primitive Man, credits our Aryan ancestors with speaking not in prose, but "in a strain that would scan." In the statement of the philosopher there is a good nugget of truth, and just a few grains of it in the words of the wit.
The analogy between the place and effect of rhythm, music, and poetry in the life of the child and in the life of the savage has been frequently noted. In his recent study ofRhythm(405 a), Dr. Bolton has touched up some aspects of the subject. With children "the habit of rhyming is almost instinctive" and universal. Almost every one can remember some little sing-song or nonsense-verse of his own invention, some rhyming pun, or rhythmic adaptation. The enormous range of variation in the wording of counting-out rhymes, game-songs, and play-verses, is evidence enough of the fertility of invention of child-poets and child-poetesses. Of the familiar counting-out formulaEeny, meeny, miny, mo, the variants are simply legion.
The well-known lines of Pope:—
"As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came,"
receive abundant illustration from the lives of the great geniuses of song.
Among primitive peoples, if anywhere,poeta nascitur, non fit. In her article onIndian Songs, Miss Alice C. Fletcher says: "Children make songs for themselves, which are occasionally handed down to other generations. These juvenile efforts sometimes haunt the memory in maturer years. An exemplary old man once sang to me a composition of his childhood, wherein he had exalted the pleasures of disobedience; but he took particular care that his children should not hear this performance. Young men sing in guessing-games, as they gambol with their companions, tossing from hand to hand a minute ball of buffalo hair or a small pebble, moving their arms to the rhythm of the music." This, and the following statement made of the Omaha Indians, will hold for not a few other savage and barbarous tribes: "Children compose ditties for their games, and young men add music to give zest to their sports" (445).
Dr. F. Boas says of the Eskimo of Baffin Land (402. 572): "Children tell one another fables and sing short songs, especially comic and satirical ones." The heroes of the Basque legend of Aquelarre are thus described by Miss Monteiro (505. 22):—
"Izar and Lanoa were two orphan children; the first was seven years of age, and the latter nine. These poor children, true wandering bards, frequented the mountains, earning a livelihood by singing ballads and national airs in sweet, infantile voices, in return for a bed of straw and a cupful of meal. Throughout the district these children were known and loved on account of their sad state, as well as for their graceful forms and winning ways."
Mr. Chatelain, in his recent work on African folk-tales, says of the natives of Angola: "No Angola child finds difficulty at any time in producing extemporaneous song."
Dr. Gatschet, in his study of the Klamath Indians, gives examples of many songs composed and sung by young people, especially girls; and many other Indian tribes, Algonkian, Iroquois, etc., possess such as well. When Darwin reached Tahiti, his arrival was "sung by a young girl in four improvised strophes, which her fellow-maidens accompanied in a pretty chorus"; and among the song-loving people of the islands of the South Sea, the poetic talent develops quite early in both sexes. Among the aborigines of Peake River, in Australia, when a youth—at puberty—has undergone the ceremony of tattooing, and, his wounds having healed, is about to return to his fellows, "a young girl selected for the purpose, sings in her own way a song which she has composed, and, amid dancing, merriment, and feasting, the youth is welcomed back to his family and his kin" (326. 11. 241). Throughout the Orient woman is a dancer and a singer. India has her bayaderes and nautch-girls, whose dancing and singing talents are world-known.
The Gypsies, too, that wander-folk of the world, are famed for their love-songs and fortune-telling rhymes, which the youth and girlhood among them so often know how to make and use. Crawford, who has translated the Kalevala, the great epic of the Finns, tells us, "The natural speech of this people is poetry. The young men and maidens, the old men and matrons, in their interchange of ideas unwittingly fall into verse" (423. I. xxvi.). Among the young herdsmen and shepherdesses of the pastoral peoples of Europe and Asia, the same precocity of song prevails. With songs of youth and maiden, the hills and valleys of Greece and Italy resound as of old. In his essay on thePopular Songs of Tuscany, Mr. J. A. Symonds observes (540. 600, 602): "Signor Tigri records by name a little girl called Cherubina, who madeRispettiby the dozen, as she watched her sheep upon the hills." When Signor Tigri asked her to dictate to him some of her songs, she replied: "Oh Signore! ne dico tanti quando li canto! … ma ora … bisognerebbe averli tutti in visione; se no, proprio non vengono,—Oh Sir! I say so many, when I sing … but now … one must have them all before one's mind … if not, they do not come properly." World-applicable as the boy grows out of childhood—with some little change of season with the varying clime—are the words of Tennyson:—
"In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts oflove,"
and everywhere, if poetry and song be not indeed the very offspring of love, they are at least twin-born with it.
Lombroso, in his discussion of the man of genius, gives many examples of precocious poetical and musical talent: Dante (who at nine years of age wrote sonnets), Tasso (wrote at ten years of age), Wieland (who wrote an epic at 16), Lope de Vega (who wrote verses at 12), Calderoii (at 13), Metastasio (who composed at 10), Handel (who wrote a mass at 13, and was director of opera at 19), Eichhorn, Mozart, and Eibler (all three of whom gave concerts at 6), Beethoven (who wrote sonatas at 13), Weber (who wrote his first opera at 14), Cherubini (who wrote a mass at 15), etc. (300.15).
Among English poets whose precocity was marked, we find the most noteworthy to be Robert Browning, whose first poetic effusion is ascribed to his fourth year. It is now known, however, that poetry is much more common among children than was at first supposed, and early compositions are not to be expected from geniuses alone, but often from the scions of the ruder commonalty.
In her interesting study of individual psychology, Dr. Caroline Miles informs us that out of ninety-seven answers to the question, "Did you express yourself in any art-form before eighteen years of age?" fourteen stated that the person replying used verses alone, fourteen used stories and poetry, three used poetry and drawing or painting, two used poetry and painting. Dr. Miles notes that "those who replied 'no' seemed to take pride in the fact that they had been guilty of no such youthful folly." This is in line with the belief parents sometimes express that the son or daughter who poetizes early is "loony." Some who were not ashamed of these child-expressions volunteered information concerning them, and we learn: "Most interesting was one who wrote a tragedy at ten, which was acted on a little stage for the benefit of her friends; from ten to thirteen, an epic; at thirteen, sentimental and religious poems" (310. 552, 553).
Dr. H. H. Donaldson, in his essay on theEducation of the Nervous System, cites the fact that of the musicians whose biographies were examined by Sully, 95% gave promise before twenty years of age, and 100% produced some work before reaching thirty; of the poets, 75% showed promise before twenty, and 92% produced before they were thirty years of age (216. 118). Precocity and genius seem to go together.
The child is father of the man,—Wordsworth.
And wiser than the gray recluseThis child of thine.—Whittier.
And still to Childhood's sweet appealThe heart of genius turns,And more than all the sages teachFrom lisping voices learns.—Whittier.
Wisdom of Childhood.
In his beautiful verses—forming part of one of the best child-poems in our language—
"And still to childhood's sweet appealThe heart of genius turns,And more than all the sages teachFrom lisping voices learns,"—
Whittier has expressed that instinctive faith in the wisdom of childhood that seems perennial and pan-ethnic. Browning, inPippa's Song, has sounded even a deeper note:—
"Overhead the tree-tops meet,Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet;There was nought above me, nought below,My childhood had not learned to know:For, what are the voices of birds—Aye, and of beasts,—but words, our words,Only so much more sweet?The knowledge of that with my life begun.But I had so near made out the sun,And counted your stars, the seven and one,Like the fingers of my hand:Nay, I could all but understandWherefore through heaven the white moon ranges;And just when out of her soft fifty changesNo unfamiliar face might overlook me—Suddenly God took me."
The power and wisdom of the child are quaintly and naively brought out in the legends and folk-lore of the various races of men, not alone of the present day, but of all eras of the world's history. As an illustration of the truth contained in the words of a great child-lover, "A little child shall lead them," and their echo in those of the Quaker poet,—
"God hath his small interpreters;The child must teach the man,"
nothing could be more artless and natural than the following legend of the Penobscot Indians of Maine, recorded by Mr. Leland, which tells of the origin of the "crowing of babies" (488. 121):—
When Glooskap, the culture-hero of these Indians, had conquered all his enemies, giants, sorcerers, magicians, evil spirits and ghosts, witches, devils, goblins, cannibals,et id genus omne, pride rose within him, and he said to a certain woman, that now his work was done, for he had conquered all. But she told him that he was mistaken; there yet remained "one whom no one has ever yet conquered or got the better of in any way, and who will remain unconquered to the end of time." This wasWasis, "the baby," who was sitting contentedly on the floor of the wigwam chewing a piece of maple-sugar. The great Glooskap, so the story runs, "had never married or had a child; he knew nought of the way of managing children"—yet he thought he knew all about it. So he smiled graciously at baby, and, "in a voice like that of a summer bird," bade him come to him. But baby sat still and went on sucking his sugar. Then Glooskap got angry, and in a terrible voice, ordered baby to crawl to him at once. But baby merely cried out and yelled, stirring not. Then Glooskap tried his last resort, magic, "using his most awful spells, and singing the songs which raise the dead and scare the devils." Still baby only smiled, and never budged an inch. At last the great Glooskap could do no more; he gave up the attempt in despair, whereupon "baby, sitting on the floor in the sunshine, went'goo! goo!'and crowed lustily." And to this day, the Indians, when they hear "a babe well-contented going'goo! goo!'and crowing, and no one can tell why," know that it is because he "remembers the time when he overcame the great Master, who had conquered all things. For of all beings that have been since the beginning, baby is alone the invincible one."
Manabozho, the culture-hero of the Chippeways and other Algonkian tribes of the Great Lakes, and probably identical with his eastern analogue, Gluskap, was, like the latter, discomfited by a child. This is the legend:—
"One day Manabozho appeared upon the earth in an ill-humour. Walking along, he espied a little child sitting in the sun, curled up with his toe in his mouth. Somewhat surprised at this, and being of a dauntless and boastful nature, he set himself down beside the child; and, picking up his own toe, he essayed to place it in his mouth after the manner of the child. He could not do it. In spite of all twisting and turning, his toe could not be brought to reach his mouth. As he was getting up in great discomfiture to get away, he heard a laugh behind him, and did no more boasting that day, for he had been outwitted by a little child."
This characteristic attitude of the child has also been noted by the folk-historians of India; for when, after the death of Brahma, the waters have covered all the worlds, "Vishnu [the 'Preserver,' in the Hindoo Trinity] sits, in the shape of a tiny infant, on a leaf of the pipala (fig-tree), and floats on the sea of milk, sucking the toe of his right foot" (440. 366), and, as Mrs. Emerson points out, "the feat that Manabozho sought in vain to perform is accomplished by the more flexible and lithe Hindoo god, Narayana" (440. 367).
In another Micmac legend, given by Leland, Gluskap appears somewhat more to advantage. Of the Turtle [Mikchich], the "Uncle" of Gluskap, for whom the latter had obtained a wife, we read (488. 57):—
"And Turtle lived happily with his wife, and she had a babe. Now it happened in after-days that Glooskap came to see his uncle, and the child cried. 'Dost thou know what he says?' exclaimed the Master. 'Truly, not I,' answered Mikchich, 'unless it be the language of the Mu-se-gisk (spirits of the air), which no man knoweth.' 'Wel,' replied Glooskap, 'he is talking of eggs, for he says, 'Hoowah! hoowah!' which, methinks, is much the same as 'waw-wun, waw-wun.' And this in Passamaquoddy means 'egg.' 'But where are there any?' asked Mikchich. Then Glooskap bade him seek in the sand, and he found many, and admired and marvelled over them greatly; and in memory of this, and to glorify the jest of Glooskap, the turtle layeth eggs even to this day."
In Mr. Leland's collection, as in the later volume of Dr. Band, there are many other delicate touches of childhood that show that these aborigines have a large measure of that love for children which is present with all races of mankind.
In the legends of the saints and heroes of the Christian Church we meet with numberless instances of the wisdom and instruction that came to them from the mouths of little children.
Among the stories in the life of St. Augustine is the following: "While St. Augustine was composing his bookOn the Trinity, and was at Cività Vecchia, he saw a little child making a hole in the seashore, and asked him what he was doing. The child replied: 'I am making a hole to contain the water of the sea.' The doctor smiled, telling the child it would not be possible to do so; but the child made answer: 'Not so, Augustine. It would be far easier to drain off the waters of the great deep than for the finite to grasp the Infinite'; and so he vanished. Augustine then knew that the child was an angel of God, sent to warn him, and he diligently set to work to revise what he had written" (191. 355).
The best of mankind can still sit at the feet of childhood and learn of its wisdom. But of many a one must it be said:—
"He hath grown so foolish-wiseHe cannot see with childhood's eyes;He hath forgot that purityAnd lowliness which are the keyOf Nature's mysteries."
So, Holy Writ in Babes hath judgment shown,Where Judges have been babes.—Shakespeare.
O wise young judge I—Shakespeare.
The Child as Judge
Shakespeare inAll's Well that Ends Well, makes Helen say to theKing:—
"He that of greatest works is finisher,Oft does them by the weakest minister:So, Holy Writ in babes hath judgment shown,When judges have been babes."
And in the history of the human race, appeal has often been made to the innocence and imputed discernment of the child.
As one of the glories of God, David sang in Israel of old: "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." And the disciple Matthew reiterates the thought: "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes"; and, again: "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou perfected praise."
Solomon.
The stories told of Solomon—the judgments of the wise Hebrew monarch, when a child, were as remarkable as those which he made after attaining man's estate—have their counterparts in other lands. One of the most celebrated decisions was rendered by Solomon when he was but thirteen years of age. Well gives the story as follows (547.192):—
"The accuser had sold some property to the other, who, in clearing out a cellar, had found a treasure. He now demanded that the accused should give up the treasure, since he had bought the property without it; while the other maintained that the accuser possessed no right to the treasure, since he had known nothing of it, and had sold the property with all that it contained. After long meditation, David adjudged that the treasure should be divided between them. But Solomon inquired of the accuser whether he had a son, and, when he replied that he had a son, he inquired of the other if he had a daughter; and he also answering in the affirmative, Solomon said: 'If you will adjust your strife so as not to do injustice one to the other, unite your children in marriage, and give them this treasure as their dowry.'" In many other difficult cases, David, after the loss of the tube which, according to legend, the angel Gabriel brought him, was aided in judgment by the wisdom and far-sightedness of his young son. A decision similar to that of Solomon is attributed to Buddha, when a child, and to Christ.
Child-Judgments.
Müllenhoff records two cases of child-judgments in his collection of the folk-lore of Schleswig-Holstein. The first is as follows: "A branch of the river Widau, near Tondern, is named Eenzau, from the little village Eenz in the parish of Burkall. Where the banks are pretty high and steep, a man fell into the water once upon a time, and would have been drowned had not a certain person, hearing his cries, hastened to the river, and, holding out a pole, enabled the drowning man to help himself out. In doing so, however, he put out an eye. The rescued man appeared at the next thing (court), entered a complaint against the other, and demanded compensation for his lost eye. The judges, not knowing what to make of the case, put it off till the next thing, in order to meditate upon it in the meantime. But the third thing came, and the district-judge had not made up his mind about it. Out of humour, he mounted his horse and rode slowly and thoughtfully in the direction of Tondern, where the thing was then held. He reached Rohrkarrberg, and, opposite the house which is still standing there, lay a stone heap, upon which sat three herd-boys, apparently busy with something of importance. 'What are you doing there, children?' asked the judge. 'We are playing thing' (court), was the answer. 'What is the matter before the court?' continued the judge. 'We are trying the case of the man who fell into the Eenzau,' they answered, and the judge held his horse to await the verdict. The boys did not know him, for he was well hidden in his cloak, and his presence did not disturb them. The judgment rendered was, that the man who had been rescued should be thrown into the stream again at the same spot; if he was able to save himself, then he should receive compensation for the eye he had lost; if he could not, the decision was to be in favour of the other. Before the district-judge went away, he put his hand into his pocket and gave the boys some money; then, merrily riding to Tondern, he rendered the same judgment as the boys had given. The fellow was unable to save himself without assistance, and was like to have been drowned; consequently, his rescuer won the case" (508. 87, 88). The other case, said to have occurred at Rapstede, was this:—
"A tailor and a peasant, both possessing nothing more than a wretched hut, made a bargain for so and so many bushels of corn at such and such a price, although the tailor knew that the peasant had no money, and the peasant knew that the tailor had a needle, but no corn. Soon the price of corn rose, and the peasant appeared before the court to demand that the tailor should fulfil his part of the bargain. The judges were at a loss to decide such a matter. In this case, also, boys rendered judgment. The decision was, that the agreement was invalid, for both, being neighbours, had known each other's circumstances, and yet both were culpable for having entered into such a deceitful bargain" (508. 88).
These decisions belong to the same category as that rendered by Solomon in the case of the two women, who both claimed the same child,—a judgment which has gone upon record in the Bible (1 Kings, iii. 16-28),—and a multitude of similar interpretations of justice found all over the world (191. 290).
Mr. Newell, speaking of children's games in which judicial procedures are imitated, but from whose decisions no serious results ever come, observes (313. 123):—
"In the ancient world, however, where the courts were a place of resort, and law was not a specialized profession, the case was different. Maximus of Tyre tells us that the children had their laws and tribunals; condemnation extended to the forfeiture of toys. Cato the younger, according to Plutarch, had his detestation of tyranny first awakened by the punishment inflicted on a playmate by such a tribunal. One of the younger boys had been sentenced to imprisonment; the doom was duly carried into effect; but Cato, moved by his cries, rescued him."
Children's Ideas of Right.
Mr. Brown, of the formal School at Worcester, Massachusetts, has given us an excellent collection ofThoughts and Reasonings of Children(194), and Signora Paola Lombroso, in her interesting and valuableEssays on Child-Psychology, has also contributed to the same subject (301. 45-72). A very recent study is that ofChildren's Rights, by Margaret E. Schallenberger (341), of Leland Stanford, Jr. University, California. The last author has charted the opinions of a large number—some three thousand papers were collected—of boys and girls from six to sixteen years of age, upon the following case, the story being employed as specially appealing to children (341. 89):—
"Jennie had a beautiful new box of paints; and, in the afternoon, while her mother was gone, she painted all the chairs in the parlour, so as to make them look nice for her mother. When her mother came home, Jennie ran to meet her, and said, 'Oh mamma! come and see how pretty I have made the new parlour'; but her mamma took her paints away and sent her to bed. If you had been her mother, what would you have done or said to Jennie?"
From this extensive and most ingenious investigation, the following results are thought to have been obtained: "Young children are less merciful than older ones. When they appear cruel and resentful, we know that they are exercising what they honestly consider the right of revenge. Boys are less merciful than girls. Young children judge of actions by their results, older ones look at the motives which prompt them. If a young child disobeys a command and no bad result follows, he doesn't see that he has done wrong. Punishments which, have in them the idea of restitution are common to all ages. Girls consider the why more than boys; they explain to Jennie oftener than boys do. Threats and forced promises do not impress children" (341. 96).
Jurisprudence of Child's Play.
Pitré, the great Italian folklorist, has made a special study, though a very brief one, of the judgments rendered by children in games and plays,—the jurisprudence of child's play (323). His essay, which is devoted to the island of Sicily, touches upon a field which is likely to yield a rich harvest all over the world. The rules of the game; who shall play and who shall not; what is "out," "taw," "in"; when is one "it," "caught," "out"; what can one "bar," and what "choose,"—all these are matters which require the decisions of the youthful judiciary, and call for the frequent exercise of judgment, and the sense of justice and equity. Of the "Boy Code of Honour" some notice is taken by Gregor (246. 21-24). Mr. Newell thus describes the game of "Judge and Jury," as played at Cambridge, Massachusetts (312.123): "A child is chosen to be judge, two others for jurors (or, to speak with our little informant,juries), who sit at his right and left hand. Each child must ask the permission of the judge before taking any step. A platter is brought in, and a child, rising, asks the judge, 'May I go into the middle of the room?' 'May I turn the platter?' 'On which side shall it fall?' If the platter falls on the wrong side, forfeit must be paid." In Germany and Switzerland there is a game of the trial of a thief. In the former country: "There is a king, a judge, an executioner, an accuser, and a thief. The parts are assigned by drawing lots, but the accuser does not know the name of the thief, and, if he makes an error, has to undergo the penalty in his stead. The judge finally addresses the king, inquiring if his majesty approves of his decision; and the king replies, 'Yes, your sentence entitles you to my favour'; or, 'No, your sentence entitles you to so many blows.' Thus we see how modern child's play respects the dignity of the king as the fountain of law." In the Swiss version, as Mr. Newell remarks, "the memory of the severity of ancient criminal law is preserved," for "the thief flies, and is chased over stock and stone until caught, when he is made to kneel down, his cap pushed over his brows, and his head immediately struck off with the edge of a board" (313.124).